This is very good: The Times – The British girls disappearing into forced marriages, by Lucy Bannerman “I was told I was staying here for ever,” she says [Tania (pseudonym), 16]. “For ever” often used to mean until 18 – the minimum age at which a Briton could sponsor a spouse’s entry to the UK. […]

…Here’s a good round up of what actually happened: When he got to the “findings of fact,” he routinely stipulated and interpreted things in the most favorable light for those advancing same-sex marriage and called them “facts.” Here are examples of many of his facts and findings, which you are urged to read slowly and […]

I’m not in a particularly good mood today and the weather (hot, muggy, stagnant) isn’t helping. Neither is this: [Charles Krauthammer] On Robert Gibbs refusing to comment on the planned mosque at Ground Zero because it’s a “local” issue: It’s no more a local issue than 9/11 was a local New York event. That’s a […]

Bwah hah hah: Mashable – Facebook Analyzes How Relationship Status Impacts Happiness [STATS] Facebook already has a methodology for measuring the overall “happiness” of its users. It basically looks at how many positive words people use in their status updates (for English speaking users). This results in the USA Gross National Happiness Index. For this […]

NYT – Many Successful Gay Marriages Share an Open Secret As the trial phase of the constitutional battle to overturn the Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage concludes in federal court, gay nuptials are portrayed by opponents as an effort to rewrite the traditional rules of matrimony. Quietly, outside of the news media and courtroom […]

I was about to tweet this with a comment like, “Gosh, it would be hilarious if it accidentally passed” (and I could see it happening, too, the press ignores it and doesn’t poll on it and everyone, both lonely souls, the married, the sad sack divorcés and the ironic all vote for it): SF Chronicle […]

Telegraph – Plans to legalise cohabiting couples are anti-women and degrade relationships, says peer New rules to give cohabiting couples the same rights as those who get married “retard the emancipation of women” and degrade relationships, according to the chairman of the Bar Standards Board. Money quote: She said: “There is nothing to stop them […]

What? Telegraph Blogs – Tim Collard: How the Civil Service sabotages the campaign against forced marriages As we know, there is a problem in this country regarding forced marriages. Some families, generally originating from the Indian subcontinent, attempt to remove their children, usually daughters, from the UK in order to marry them off to someone […]

Telegraph – Parental discipline ‘key factor’ in giving children best start, says think tank<br/> Parents who discipline their children are giving their offspring the best chance in life, according to a report by Demos, the progressive think-tank. The report, Building Character, studied data from 9,000 households in Britain to find out what sort of upbringing […]

Well, well, well. It turns out that little vote we Washingtonians (well, not we precisely because I never registered to vote and Peter was somehow listed as “inactive” (uh huh suuuuure)) just had on Prop 71 with the obnoxious “Protect all Washington families” tagline (and “keep the domestic partnership line” tagline on most of the […]

A Life Magazine article on Mussolini and Italian fascism (keep scrolling, it’s about half way down at page 31). Opening excerpt: Fascism is the fightingest word in the world today. To free peoples, it means War and Tyranny. On these pages LIFE presents its less war-like aspects. Americans think of Government as something outside themselves. […]

Telegraph – Social services ‘to take baby from teenager deemed too stupid to marry’<br/> A mother-to-be, who was banned from marrying after social workers said she is not intelligent enough, is to have her baby taken away immediately after giving birth. Kerry Robertson, 17, who has mild learning difficulties, has been told that she will […]

Today’s Peter’s and my first wedding anniversary. I don’t have the top of my cake with me (my mother was going to bring it up but thought it might not survive the trip), nor my dress (not that I’d fit it anyway, yet), but I do have a final bottle of the champagne from the […]

Telegraph – Why must we bow to the intolerant ways of Islam?<br/> Jim Fitzpatrick MP and his wife were quite right to leave a wedding because it was segregated by sex, says Alasdair Palmer. When Jim Fitzpatrick MP and his wife decided to leave a Muslim wedding party after they discovered it was segregated by […]

I find it interesting that I saw these two stories back-to-back: Volock – Surplus of Males and Runaway (with the Bride-Price) Brides Thanks to its 30-year-old population-planning policy and customary preference for boys, China has one of the largest male-to-female ratios in the world. Using data from the 2005 China census — the most recent […]